Hypnobirthing and how it can help you

How is it possible that this is my first Mummy&LittleMe post since I had a Millar almost 8 weeks ago. I'll write more about what it was like and our first few weeks getting to know each other soon. But I wanted to write a review of a book I was kindly sent first.

I was sent a copy of Mindful Hypnobirthing by Sophie Fletcher to review about two weeks before my due date so I don't think I had enough time to really make the most of it. I did however devour it in about five days, reading it everywhere - in the bath, on my birthing ball, in waiting rooms... I found it easy to read and understand and it broke things up into really helpful chunks. I was already kind of in the right mental place as I'd done Lazy Daisy, which uses some hypnobirthing ideas and so was already used to positive birth affirmations and visualisation.

The diagrams in the book are really useful and help to make all the visualisation easier - I also liked the fact that it explained things in a few different ways to make it clearer. At the end of each chapter, a summary consolidated everything and made it seem totally manageable.

The emphasis is really on practice and I didn't have a great deal of time to do this, unfortunately. I think you need to really throw yourself into this book and practise the techniques regularly. I know that I found this with the Lazy Daisy techniques and it was the repetition that made it work - the same would undoubtedly be true for mindful hypnobirthing.

Although I didn't use as many of the techniques in my labour as I would have like to (I was induced which meant there wasn't very much I could do to stay in control – more about that another time!), reading it in the weeks leading up to giving birth put me in a good place in preparation for Millar's arrival and there were a couple of key bits I did use that really worked. The list of positive birth affirmations is brilliant and I memorised a lot of these to repeat in labour. A couple of the diagrams also made things suddenly make more sense. And the downloadable tracks are excellent - I loved listening to these and doing the exercises they suggest- and wish I'd had them before to really try to internalise them.

You’ll find that the book is beautifully written and feels like the author is really looking after you and your baby as she guides you through the process. I really would recommend you get this book if you're pregnant - it's amazing what the mind can do in labour and this book can help you to access it. Have you read it? I'd love to hear how it affected your birth.

I was not paid for this post, but was sent a copy of the book for me to review.